Okay, let me pray. Father, I thank you, as Bill did as well, for your goodness and your grace in enabling us to gather today with healthy bodies, with healthy minds. We thank you for the safe transport here, even for cars that can carry us over many miles in a relatively short time. Very fortunate in that way. And we, you have made it so easy for us to gather together. And we thank you that we still are living in a country that permits this, that we don't need to gather in secret. We don't need to be fearful of arrest or imprisonment. And we pray that we would use these opportunities and rejoice in them. The gathering of your saints, the communion of the saints is a very precious thing. And I pray that it will be precious to each of us and continue to grow in our sense of the preciousness of being together. We talk all the time about your intent to gather to yourself, to form a human organism that is gathered up in your own life in Christ our Lord. Your intent is a human community. I pray that that will be a priority with us as well, that we will see the preciousness of one another and that we will see the necessity and importance of laboring together to grow up in Christ, who is the head. So we pray that as we're gathered in his name, that your spirit will attend to our time together, our time in the scriptures, our time of thinking and contemplation, and in all things, Father, we pray that we would yield to your spirit's design to conform us to the likeness of Christ, that we will, as Paul said, learn him and grow in him as we give this time to you, as we worship together in the spirit through the leading of his wisdom and guidance through the scriptures themselves. So meet each one of us Give us encouragement, give us an ever greater zeal and joy in the journey and truly a sincere desire to see ourselves grow up into Christ. Bless us in the time we ask these things in His name and for His sake, amen. Well, we're still kind of dealing with incarnation and we really will throughout our consideration of the gospel accounts, but not necessarily in the way that we've thought about incarnation as a theological, metaphysical, philosophical category of doctrine, the joining of deity and humanity together, even as we've considered. So I tried to lay the foundation for a couple of weeks concerning this biblical way of thinking about incarnation, how we should view it. And then we talked about some of the practical implications of that, and then now we're moving into this section called the work of incarnation. And by that, I mean the playing out, the working out of the very purpose for it. What was the reason for it? Was it just for God to show that, gee, I can join myself to a human being? Was it just about the cross? What is this thing of incarnation all about? And the gospel writers are concerned with that issue. In telling the story of Jesus, they're telling the story of incarnation. not just as it pertains to him, but ultimately the work associated with that and the way that it fleshes itself out in God's purposes for the creation. So we've seen to this point, and this is foundational, that the incarnation from the scripture standpoint amounts to Yahweh returning to Zion to end Israel's exile. Even in the psalm we read this morning, the longing of the people of Israel voiced through Moses, their prophet, their leader, oh, return to us, oh God. Put things right. So incarnation amounts to Yahweh returning to Zion to end the exile, heal the alienation that actually lay behind the exile, renew the covenant, renew the covenant relationship, and then God would again take up his place in the midst of his people. That return, that work, those were the nation's expectation and longing through all of the Old Testament history from the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Babylonian siege, right? We've seen that moving through the Old Testament. So for five centuries, Israel was waiting and longing for that return. But as we've seen as well, Israel could never have imagined, nor could have anybody, it wasn't Israel's fault. No one could have ever imagined how God was going to do that work, how it was that he was going to return. How it was that he was going to heal them and liberate them and again take up his place in their midst. Incarnation was a much unexpected way of God resolving that. And especially when we consider incarnation as God taking up Israel's own failed existence in himself. So when the scripture treats incarnation, its focus is on that. as I say here, the profound and even the shocking way that the God of Abraham had determined to see Abraham's seed fulfill their election and calling on behalf of the world. Incarnation is us being made to realize that Israel's God would cause Israel to become Israel, which it had to by virtue of his covenant oath to Abraham. If God were to be faithful, Israel had to be Israel. but God would cause Israel to become Israel by himself embodying Israel. So incarnation then speaks to the way in which God brought into actual existence all that he had been revealing and promising throughout Israel's long and agonizing history. Incarnation is really the answer, the realization of the whole of the Israelite history, the whole of the Old Testament history. And therefore, it's the underlying premise in the gospel accounts, which are saying, here's how the scriptures have been fulfilled in this man, Jesus of Nazareth. That's the way we have to read the scriptures. And the reason that's important is because a lot of Christians really aren't even sure what to make of the gospels. Because we've been so conditioned to think of this thing called Christian truth and the purpose of God and the work of God in terms of Calvary, we essentially come to the gospels and we say, okay, well, really, I mean, it's all, we're just trying to get to Calvary. And I guess these gospel writers are just throwing in, you know, some of Jesus' teaching and some miracles and, you know, basically he's a thorn in the side of the Jewish authorities. And so they're just kind of throwing in some of that as placeholders till we get to this thing that it's really all about, which is Jesus dying on the cross. and to view it in that way and just kind of sweep past what it is that the gospel writers are doing is really to, at the least, impoverish the truth of who this Messiah is, but even, in a sense, ironically, to rob ourselves of the ability to understand this thing called the cross. So the gospel writers tell their stories in a very measured, calculated, intentional way. They're not just filling You know, oh, Jesus, he did this, he walked here, he healed this person, he did that, oh, the Pharisees were kind of upset with him, oh, he taught some good theology, but now we finally get to the real issue, which is the cross. So my goal in this is for us to rethink the gospel accounts and to rethink how it is that they are critically telling Israel's story as it's reached its climax in Jesus the Messiah. So the place to begin with that, then, even as we think about, okay, what is this work of incarnation, is the genealogy of Jesus himself. We read these passages this morning because two of the gospel writers, two of the four, begin with genealogy. Mark doesn't. Mark begins with John the Baptist. And John begins actually with what? The eternal logos of God. He deals with the issue of incarnation first and foremost. But genealogy is fundamental. If we're going to say, okay, what is this work of incarnation? Where do we begin? I think we have to begin with the genealogy and we have two genealogies. Matthew gives us one, and Luke gives us one. And both Matthew and Luke identify Jesus explicitly, not implicitly, explicitly, as Israel's promised, long-awaited Messiah. John does the same thing, and so does Mark, but even in terms of the genealogies, they very much are getting at the fact that this is the Messiah. But as we've noted, they differ in their genealogical accounts. And I personally, I don't know about you, but I've personally known people who have used the different genealogies to question the inspiration of either or both Matthew or Luke, or even call into question the inspiration, the truthfulness of the scriptures. You have two different genealogies. You know, how can A equal B? They can't, right? Somebody's right, somebody's wrong, maybe both are wrong. But when we understand what they're doing with their genealogies, then we see there isn't a contradiction at all. They have a different intent. So Matthew constructs his genealogy around his concern to establish Jesus, right from the outside, establish Jesus' messianic credential and his regal status. How does he begin even before the genealogy? the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, son of Abraham, son of David. And if you read through his genealogy, the couple of pauses that he has between so-and-so begets so-and-so, then so-and-so begets so-and-so, it's just this long list of that connection between two names. But the two little partitions that he puts in there are around David and Babylon. If you go back and look at that genealogy, So he's tracing Jesus' ancestry only back to Abraham. Does that mean Abraham was just like dropped out of heaven? Didn't Abraham have ancestors? Well, why does he go back to Abraham? Because that's where Israel's covenant life began. There was no such thing as a Jew or an Israelite. Abraham was a Mesopotamian pagan. He was a man that God called out of the world to be the beginning of a people for his own possession, that through this elect people, he might accomplish this work on behalf of humankind. Everything went south through a man, everything was to be restored through a man. But there was no Israel before Abraham. There was no covenant before Abraham, not in the way that we think about that. So he traces the ancestry of Jesus back to Abraham and then through David's regal line. David begetting Solomon, and then you see the tracing of the line of the kings of Judah, right? And also he ends that, he summarizes it, he gives you a glimpse into why he constructed his genealogy the way he did. He explains it to you. He constructed it stylistically even around three symmetrical partitions. What does he say? And so there were 14 generations from Abraham to David, from David to Babylon, Babylon to the Messiah. Well, what's the point? Those are the high points. The promise of a covenant kingdom, a covenant people, Yahweh becoming the king of all the earth, was made to Abraham. That kingdom that God promised to Abraham was realized in its earthly, typological, prototypical form in David's kingdom. We saw that when we went through the Old Testament. David ruled all over all the nations from the river, the great river, the Euphrates to the river of Egypt to, you know, the Mediterranean Sea, the region that God promised to Abraham, David ruled over that. And the sons of Israel were as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand of the seashore. That was Abrahamic promise, right? So the kingdom came to its first level fulfillment in David. but the Davidic kingdom went away with the deportation to Babylon. First, the kingdom was divided and winnowed, and David was left with two tribes that comprised the Davidic kingdom, Judah and Benjamin. You had Israel stripped away, but then even the Babylonian conquest of Judea was the end of David's kingdom, the cutting off of David's line, David's throne, But through all of that stands the promise of a kingdom made to Abraham. So Babylon to the Christ becomes that last segment. So he has a theological and ultimately an Abrahamic kingdom intent in building his genealogy. And if we read this just as comparing names throughout the scripture, did he miss any? Is one out of order? Oh, well, he can't trust the scriptures. That's not what he's trying to do. He's building a stylized genealogy to show the significance of who this one Jesus the Messiah is. So the partitioning of Matthew, together with his opening statement emphasizing Jesus' descent from Abraham and David, shows us that his focus was on establishing Jesus' status as Israel's long-awaited messianic redeemer king, the covenanted son of David whom Yahweh promised that would end Israel's centuries-long exile initiated by Babylon, and he would inaugurate and preside over the kingdom he had pledged to Abraham. And as I've said before, and I'll just mention this again in passing, from the Bible's standpoint, Israel was still in the Babylonian exile at the time that Jesus was born. You see, Babylon wasn't even on the field at that point. The torch had been passed to meet a Persian, then to Greece, and now to Rome. But that exile that Babylon had put in place still continued. Because Yahweh had sent away his people and he had departed from them because of the covenant unfaithfulness. That's what the exile was all about. And through all of those next five centuries, even though they'd gone back, they rebuilt the city, they rebuilt the temple, Yahweh has not returned. The people are waiting for him to return. And when he returns, He will deal with this covenant violation. He will forgive. He will cleanse. He will restore. He will liberate. So the exile has not ended. It's not a matter of geography. It's a matter of relationship. That's important to recognize. Even as John the Baptist comes on the scene. So Luke's genealogy then, on the other hand, is highlighting Jesus' full humanness as a son of Adam. He traces Jesus' descent back through Mary rather than Joseph. That's why I wanted Laurie to read that one beginning statement in Luke's genealogy. Jesus supposed to be or assumed to be the son of Joseph, the son of Eli or Heli, who is actually Mary's father. if you read through the gospel accounts. Well, why that? Because in the ancient world, and that was certainly true in the Jewish world, a person's line of descent was traced through the father. That was the issue. And so Luke didn't mention Mary as Jesus' biological mother, but pointed to his maternal grandfather as his most immediate male forefather. but he throws that in there, Jesus who was supposed, who was assumed to be the son of Joseph, the son of Hali. He's tracing out Mary's genealogy, and it becomes obvious even if you go through it, because when you look at the descent from David, it doesn't go through Solomon in Luke's account, it goes through Nathan, another one of David's sons, but not the royal line. Joseph is the royal line. Mary is a David-eyed, but not in the royal line. And we talked about, I think we've talked about, but even the fact for Jesus to attain the throne of David, when David's regal line has been cut off, The only way that can work is for him to be a son of David, not through the royal line and be grafted back into the royal line through adoption. And as Joseph's first born, Joseph in the regal line of David, Jesus becomes the first born back into that royal line, but he's not a descendant from that line. Does it make sense? But he is nonetheless a son of David. So Israel, this was a part of their trying to sort all this out for those centuries. How can God sever David's line forever and yet say that I'm going to be faithful with my covenant with David, that a son from his royal line will sit on his throne? So Luke's genealogy then underscores two crucial truths. First, that Jesus was the human son of Mary, but conceived by the Holy Spirit, not a human father. Both Matthew and Luke emphasize that. But secondly, that Jesus was fully and truly human as a son of Adam, like all other men. He wasn't just a divine-human hybrid, some kind of a freakoid, one-off humanoid or something. And he wasn't just a quasi-human, less-than-human sort of person. He fully shared the fallen Adamic humanness that Mary did, that every descendant of Adam did. As a true biological son of Mary, he was a son of Adam. He shared that Adamic humanness that defines every other being. Luke understood, and is emphasizing, he understood that only in that way, by being made like his brethren in all things, as the writer of Hebrews says, only in that way could Jesus truly encounter and heal Adam's race. It's that Gregory Nazianzus idea, the unassumed is the unhealed. Jesus had to take up our humanness if he was to heal it. He couldn't be something other than us. And I know people that believe that. I know people that believe the reason why Jesus' blood was atoning is because it was divine blood, it wasn't human blood. I don't know if you ever heard an argument like that before, but that's again missing this whole point of what the scripture's trying to emphasize. He was a man just like us. His blood was Adamic blood just like ours. So when you put the two genealogies together, they provide a composite portrait going into the gospel accounts and the story they tell of who this person Jesus of Nazareth is. These genealogies provide a composite portrait of him and that lays the foundation for all that follows, culminating with his resurrection and ascension as the glorified regal and priestly image son. So the genealogies together show that this one, Jesus of Nazareth, is a bona fide son of Adam, born into and bearing in himself the curse and brokenness of the human race, but as a member of Abraham's covenant household. and specifically within Abraham's household as the messianic offspring promised to David. So Matthew and Luke introduced Jesus as the Israelite in whom Israel would become Israel indeed, and therefore as Yahweh's vessel of renewal and in gathering for all the earth's families. When you read even those genealogies through the scriptural storyline, you have a whole different take on it than just comparing names to see if we can trust the Bible. So that's just, again, in the work of incarnation, this idea of even his genealogy is a part of the outworking of his own life and role and purpose in coming into the world. But I want to turn next to his baptism, because this is where the gospel writers go next. And when you see, for all the differences in the things that are in one gospel and not in another, or the way that the gospel writers construct their accounts individually and independently, all four of them record the ministry of John the Baptist. And when you see that happen, it should tell you clearly the early church believed that the ministry of John the Baptist, specifically as it implicated Jesus himself, the ministry of John the Baptist, the early church, the early Christians believed was vitally important to understanding who he was and the work that he came to do. So that's why I think it's important when we talk about this thing of the work of incarnation to give attention to the baptism. Many Christians recognize that his baptism, Jesus' baptism, laid the foundation for his public ministry. This was really his coming out party, so to speak, if you want to put it in that way, right? His baptism. But not many see, in my experience, not many see that episode as a crucial point of substantiation of his incarnational role as true Israel for the sake of Israel. And I hope that we'll see, looking at the text, the way the Gospel writers deal with the baptism, John's ministry, and Jesus in particular, it has its focal point in this him being the true Israel. That's why I even put it in the section of the work of incarnation, the true Israel. Jesus is the true Israel. That's a fundamental work or aspect of the work of incarnation. And we'll see, Jesus' full identification with Israel was precisely the reason for his baptism and the meaning of it. But we have to begin, I think, by reiterating what we've already considered. We spent some time just looking at John the Baptist, but it's important to step back and remember that John was the Isianic forerunner. Note again, the gospel writers, when they introduce John, they point back to Isaiah chapter 40, right? This is the one. Behold, I send my messenger before your face to prepare your way for you. So the gospel writers don't just say, oh yeah, there's this guy, John. He was out there splashing water on people. Jesus went out and got baptized. He wants you to understand that John is the one that Isaiah had promised. We have to begin there. And all the evangelists take note of that. He is that Isianic forerunner. Well, why is that important? because that forerunner was the one through whom, he was the one that Yahweh would send to Israel to prepare the people to be ready for Yahweh's return. So you have to interpret John's work in terms of that. He's the one that God sends to Israel to prepare the people to be ready for Yahweh returning to them. They've been waiting 500 years for Yahweh to return. And as I said, his return must involve his dealing with the alienation that exists between him and the people. He sent them away and he left because they'd broken the covenant. So Yahweh's return means covenant renewal, but covenant renewal means forgiveness of sin. And then it means reconciliation of the relationship such that Yahweh will once again dwell in the midst of his people. And John is the one, or the forerunner, was the one who would come to prepare the way for Yahweh to come and do that work, prepare the people. And John is that one. So you have to read John's ministry through the lens of that forerunner mission. That's the sense in which John's baptism is concerned with repentance. We get hung up on this whole thing of, oh, this is about Jews going out and, oh, they were sinners and they need to go out and confess their sins. Oh, you know, I yelled at my wife. I hit my kid. I, you know, like, like confession in a Catholic confessional or something. That's not what this is. And hopefully we'll see this. John's baptism was concerned with repentance, but in the sense that it was a symbolic washing at the Jordan River that spoke to Israel's need to return to Yahweh in their hearts and minds. And so be prepared to receive him when he returned to them. When God brought them out of Egypt, remember he's promising a second deliverance from exile. The first main exile was what? Egypt. Egypt becomes the great prototype of this new deliverance. We've seen that in Isaiah's book, right? Arise, O Lord, as you did, and as you slew Rahab, and you brought the people through the sea. So do that work again. The redeemed will return to Zion. They were waiting for another exodus, a second exodus, a liberation from exile. So this repentance is about them returning to Yahweh in their hearts and minds so they're prepared to receive him when he returns. And Israel had passed through the Jordan when they came to dwell with God in his sanctuary land. When they came out of, when God delivered them, he redeemed them from Egypt. and he ended their exile in the wilderness by bringing them into his sanctuary land, what was the last kind of significant thing? Passing through the Jordan. And so it was to be with their present exile. The Israelites who went out to the Jordan to undergo John's baptism understood that symbolism. They were waiting for the end of exile. They were waiting for this redemption. They were waiting to be reconciled to their God. And they viewed all of that through the lens of the first Exodus, because that's what God kept connecting it with. This is how they were thinking about it. So when they recognized John as the forerunner then, What they're doing is they're recognizing that this is the time. Their repentance was their conscious recommitment to their God with the recognition that the presence of his forerunner heralded the end of their alienation. After five long centuries, Yahweh was at last returning to them. If John is the forerunner, then Yahweh is returning. and they wanted to be ready to receive him. So John's public relationship with Jesus, now Jesus comes into the picture, and that relationship was one of announcement and baptism, right? A word and an act. John identifies him and he baptizes him. That relationship spoke to two crucial issues. Number one, Jesus' relationship with the God of Israel, and number two, his relationship with Israel itself. As to his relationship with God, the way John identifies him, and you have to go back and read these baptism accounts on your own, but do it through this lens that I'm giving you. The way John identified him showed that he recognized Jesus to be the one through whom Yahweh was returning to Zion and returning to judge, purge, and renew his people. Why do I say that? Because the forerunner's role was to prepare Israel for Yahweh's coming, and John pointed the people to Jesus as the coming one who would win over Israel. You've heard me say before, rather than trying to find a verse in the Bible, when we try to prove the deity of Jesus and we say, oh, here's a verse that shows Jesus is God, the way the New Testament understands the deity of Jesus is it understands that he is Yahweh returned to Zion. When we think about incarnation, that's how we have to think about it. So John also insisted, interestingly, this is in John's gospel, John the Baptist insisted that his own baptizing work had its goal in Jesus being manifested, disclosed, made known to Israel. What John was doing, like I said, he wasn't just splashing water on people or saying, oh, you guys have all sinned, come out here and I'll cleanse you. Ultimately what this was about is he understood his own work was foundational to making the Messiah known to Israel. It was about Jesus. That was ultimately the issue. So John himself, and he says in John's gospel, John the Baptist, I keep saying John, but John the Baptist in John's gospel, John records that he said, I didn't recognize him at first. I didn't know. But he had come to understand that fulfilling his own calling as forerunner, announcing Yahweh's return and preparing the people for it, fulfilling that calling, preparing the Israel to receive their God involved directing their attention and their discernment, their understanding toward the one that he had sent. This was how God was returning to his people. in the person of the Messiah. That's how, when we put John the Baptist into it, this is how now we begin to think about incarnation. So that's the way in which John opens up or develops this idea of Jesus' relationship with the God of Israel. But also in announcing him, pointing to him, and baptizing him, but particularly in the interpretation that John gives to Jesus, even to those who ask him, are you the Christ? No, I'm not. I'm sent ahead of him. I'm the forerunner. John made known to Israel that this was the messianic son in whom Israel's sonship was faithfully embodied. Israel was son of God, empowered, led by God's spirit to serve him faithfully and so make him known in the world. That's what we've seen. Israel was son of God, led by his spirit to make him known to all the families of the earth. A son is of the father. A son bears the likeness of the father. So a faithful son testifies of the father. But as we've seen, Israel failed its election and vocation perpetually. This one would be the faithful son that Israel had never been. As John puts it, an Israelite in whom there was no guile. So when you put those two things together, Jesus' relationship with the Father in connection with John the Baptist's ministry, and Jesus' relationship with Israel in connection with John the Baptist's ministry, those two things, again, highlight what I've been trying to get at in this thing of incarnation. Jesus, the incarnate word, is the God of Israel returning to Zion to enact his word by taking up in himself Israel's failed existence and Israel's calling as elect son on behalf of the world. And so Jesus, the messianic servant's son, embodies God's covenant with Israel. He fulfills both sides of the covenant relationship in himself. That's why Isaiah, and it's implied elsewhere, but twice in Isaiah explicitly in connection with the servant, in the servant songs, God says, I make you the covenant of the people. He embodies the covenant. Well, covenants are between two parties. Well, he is both parties. He fulfills both parties. He's God unto Israel. He's Israel unto God. And these things are crucial to understanding Jesus' own perception of his baptism. The insight that we have into Jesus being baptized, he comes from Galilee. He comes down from Galilee, down to the south. John was baptizing a little bit north of the Dead Sea as the best guess, but Jesus comes down from Galilee and goes to be baptized by John. It's not just he happens to be wandering by and he thinks, I guess I'll go ahead and do this too. What are you up to, John? It's not that. He goes down to be baptized by John. So he obviously understood something about that, that this was important, that this had some significance in terms of his own mission, his own calling. What was his perception of it? And you get a hint of that when John says, you're coming to me to be baptized? I should be baptized by you. And what does Jesus say? We read it, permitted at this time for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And whether it pertains to any of you, I don't know, but I mean, very commonly this is where now everything gets twisted up in people's minds because right away they think, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. This is a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. And Jesus says, I need to do this to fulfill all righteousness. So we tend as Christians to want to raise the very objection that John did. Why would you get baptized? Why would you get baptized? Is there sin in your life? Oh, well now Jesus is a sinner. Now our whole theology collapses, right? Why would the blameless, spotless Son of God need to be baptized? How would that be in any way connected with righteousness? We raise the same objection that John does. But when we understand what Jesus is talking about, then the problem goes away. Righteousness, and I know I've talked about this many times, but in terms of its biblical usage, the basic idea of righteousness is not about personal morality or ethics, but the conformity of a thing to what is right. With rightness being defined by God and his purposes and the way in which he works out those purposes, When a thing conforms to the truth of itself as God has designed and intended it, it is righteous. When a human being lives an authentically, fully human life, he is righteous. So righteousness speaks to integrity, wholeness. What you see is what you get. What you see is what I am. speaks to integrity and faithfulness in regard to God's will and work. Simply put, it's conformity to the truth." That's what God means when he keeps insisting of himself throughout Israel's history, I am the righteous one, I am the righteous one. He's not saying, I uphold a moral standard all the time, you guys need to do that. What he's saying is, I am who I am. Even his declaration, I am who I am, that's a statement of his righteousness. What you see in me is what I am. That's why I said his words are synonymous with who he is. His works are synonymous with who he is. God always conforms to the truth of who he is, and therefore he's faithful to his word, he's faithful to his will, he's faithful to his purposes. He shows himself to be righteous, not by upholding a moral standard, but upholding his commitment to accomplish what he's purposed and promised. He is faithful, he will not lie or change his mind. So in the same way, Jesus perceived his baptism as fulfilling all righteousness, not because he needed to repent of sin or saw himself as unrighteous in any sense in the way we think about it, but because he understood and was committed to his mission, his vocation. His father had sent him to take up Israel's life and lot. The genealogies tell us that. His father had sent him to take up Israel's life and lot, and that meant showing complete solidarity with his Israelite brethren in their unfaithfulness and guilt under the covenant. If he was a son of Adam, born under the curse, born into broken human existence, Israel's existence was a microcosm of that, wasn't it? Israel's brokenness was just Adamic brokenness. Jesus was born into that, and he showed complete solidarity with Israel in its own relationship with God. So the God of Israel had willed that his Messianic servant should be Israel for the sake of Israel, and therefore Jesus honored and fulfilled all righteousness when he fully yielded to that design in its process. His baptism didn't have anything to do with his moral standing before God. It was a critical dimension of his faithful ownership of his messianic identity and mission. It was critical to him being Israel. Remember John said, what I do is to make him known in Israel, to manifest him to the sons of Israel. Well, that was a critical point of making him known in the sense in which he actually was and God had sent him. He was going to be Israel for Israel. He had to take up their own existence in order to heal it. So his baptism then was a key component of his obedience to his calling and a crucial aspect of his being made manifest to Israel and God's own attestation to him is a part of that. the voice coming out of heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. So you have a voice out of heaven, the heavens opened, and Jesus is there with lots of people around him. This isn't in a room someplace. It's a public attestation by the God of Israel that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is his beloved and well-pleasing son. And this isn't just God affirming that Jesus has been obedient and it's not even an opaque reference to his status as the incarnate one, the son of God in the sense of being the incarnate son. The context and especially where we're going to see next where this goes with the wilderness It shows that God is intending his words to identify Jesus to Israel as uniquely, singularly, what Israel itself was supposed to be. Israel was son of God, elected, set apart to be well-pleasing to him by fulfilling its sonship on behalf of the world. God points to one Israelite, he's just shown solidarity with Israel, and God points to him and says, This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him. Think again about what we've read in Isaiah where God says, you who would pursue righteousness, look to Abraham. Look to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham, your father. You who would be right with me, get back to that Abrahamic origin. You want to be right with me, you need to become Israel indeed. How is Israel going to become Israel indeed? This is my beloved son. This is the son. He's the one I'm well pleased with. So he is the one in whom Israel will become Israel, the one in whom Israel will fulfill its own calling, its own election. Yahweh was returning to Zion then as her redeemer to end her exile, gather her children and renew the covenant. And that meant that he was raising up from within Israel a faithful servant son for that work. This is what the servant songs are giving us. So this in summary then is the significance of God's pronouncement when he says, this is my beloved son. By identifying and affirming Jesus as he did in the context of his baptism and John's ministration, John's ministration is about preparing Israel for Yahweh's return. Jesus' baptism is about him owning solidarity with his people. What God was doing was bearing witness to his people that this man was the faithful servant, Israel, through whom the reconciliation, the restoration, the ending of exile, the in-gathering, all of that that was symbolized by John's baptism, this is the faithful Israel in whom that would be realized. So all Israel, the gospels say, were going out to John, all Israel. It doesn't mean every single person, but the people, the nation was going out. recognizing that this one was the forerunner in the hope that exile is now coming to an end. They were going out to be prepared to meet their God. God's pronouncement reoriented and focused that hope by directing it towards Jesus. He is the one in whom Israel will become Israel. And that also explains the significance of giving the spirit, something else that we stumble over. Well, Jesus is God. Why did he need the spirit? Why would God give Jesus a spirit? He's God. Once again, we're missing the point. Jesus' sonship in this context and God's pronouncement to him points to his status as true Israel. God says, this is my beloved son. And they see like a dove, the spirit descending upon him. John saw that, right? He saw it. He watched it happen. And there's every reason to believe the others that were there saw it as well. if that shows he's true Israel and therefore Yahweh's man of the spirit. Israel was to be man of the spirit, the people amongst whom God dwelt in his spirit, empowering them, leading them, equipping them, guiding them so that they would fulfill their sonship and therefore bear testimony to the nations. I give you this quotation and I won't read it for the sake of time, but in Isaiah 63, The prophet is calling them back to the time, remember when Yahweh's spirit was in our midst and led us and directed us, and there's this desire for the return of the spirit. But it was the spirit who made Israel Israel. While Jesus has shown solidarity with Israel by undergoing their baptism, Yahweh affirmed that status as the true Israel by endowing him with the spirit. as he gave his spirit to Israel to empower them to fulfill their sonship through all of their trials, through all of their challenges. So it would be with Jesus as he prepared to undergo Israel's testing. The next thing we're gonna see immediately, as soon as this baptism is done and the spirit falls upon him, is the spirit drives him out into the wilderness. And then in Luke's gospel, he comes out of the wilderness in the power of the spirit, and he goes into the synagogue at Nazareth, and he opens the scroll of Isaiah, and he reads from it, and he says what? God has given me the spirit, right? The spirit is upon me to preach the good news to the poor. This day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. You can even look at that here real quick in Luke 4. You don't have to flip to it if you don't want to, He came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up. The Spirit brings him back. He comes back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit after his wilderness testing. He goes into the synagogue at Nazareth where he'd been brought up, which is an interesting place, again, for him to make this proclamation. He opens the book of Isaiah and it was handed to him. And he opens it and he finds the place where it's written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the good news to the poor, sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the year of the Lord's jubilee. What is the jubilee? The releasing of captivity. He's come to set the captives free. And he closed the book, handed it back to the attendant. He said, this day, this is fulfilled in your hearing. So that's the point of the Spirit. It's not, why does he need the Spirit? He's God, he can do miracles without that. We're going down the wrong path when we think that that's what it's about. So in closing then, Jesus' public interaction with John the Baptist was crucially important in the outworking of his messianic calling, especially as the beginning of his self-presentation to Israel. Just as John said, I am doing this in order to make him known to Israel. How so? First of all, because John was the forerunner promised by Isaiah, therefore his public interaction with Jesus, interaction that people of Israel were observing, knowing that John is this forerunner, his interaction with Jesus associated him with Yahweh's return to Zion. Secondly, Jesus' open identification with his Israelite brethren in baptism linked him with Israel itself, Israel as God's elect Son, Servant, Disciple, and Witness. Thirdly, God's response to his baptism punctuated by John's own witness as John testifies to who he is. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, his winnowing fork is in his hand. As John interprets him in conjunction with God's interpretation of him, all connected with his baptism, that shows that Jesus is Israel in the way that Israel had failed to be. He aligns himself with Israel but as the way in which Yahweh has returned to Zion to put things right. He will be faithful Israel where Israel has failed. That sets the tone for understanding even what we do at this wilderness testing that's coming next. So all of this attested that Jesus was Israel for the sake of Israel, the one through whom Yahweh's purposes and promises were coming to fruition. Thus the Spirit drove him from the Jordan east into the wilderness. Israel had come back this way through the howling wilderness across the Jordan, right? When they came into the land, they crossed through the wilderness, crossed the Jordan into Yahweh's sanctuary. This one is now going into the wilderness to relive Israel's testing and he will come back in the power of the Spirit as a faithful son. he's going out to undertaking himself the nation's ancient testing. He'd made himself one with them in baptism, and now he would bear their ordeal under the trial of faith and faithfulness, not just to succeed where they had failed, but for the sake of their renewal, for the sake of the renewal of mankind, for the sake of creation's renewal. This is what it means when the gospel writers and Jesus himself say, all the scriptures testify of him. It doesn't mean we find Jesus hidden in the numerology of every verse in the Old Testament, or we're imagining all sorts of, it means that the whole of the story, which is the story of Israel, finds its yes and amen in Jesus of Nazareth. And that's why the gospel writers tell this story the way they do. As I said when we began today, they're not just saying, oh, it's really just all about the cross, but well, it wouldn't be good if I just wrote three sentences. Jesus was born, he went to the cross and died. end. So what do I'll do? I'll just, yeah, I did some healings. I'll throw that in there. He kind of frustrated the leadership of the, of the nation. I'll throw some of that in there. He taught some kind of nice theology. I'll throw that in there as well. It's not that they're very carefully crafting their story to show that this is the one that all of Israel's history, its story has been building to. This is the work of incarnation. This is the work of incarnation. Well, Lord willing, next time, then, we'll consider the wilderness testing. So if you want to go ahead. And I know I'm not exactly following the God With Us series from before. I'm drawing from it, but I'm trying to also kind of flesh it out a little bit differently. That was 20 years ago, and maybe we can flesh it out a little differently. But you can keep listening to those if you want to. But I'm not going to follow it one for one at this point as we're going through the Gospels. But the wilderness episode will be the next time. And so you can at least read those accounts through the gospel writers and be prepared for that. So let me go ahead and I'll close this in prayer. Father, we do thank you for these glorious truths. And I know in my own heart, I'm constantly reminded of the fact that no human being or human organization or group of people could ever come up with such a marvelous, intricate, magnificent and multi-faceted story. I've often been asked why you didn't just create everything in the consummate form at the very beginning. Why have we had to go through this long, arduous, painful process of this thing that we call the history of redemption? And I truly believe that our understanding of you, our understanding of really this creation and what you have intended it to be. With human beings at the center, our understanding of ourselves, our understanding of all of these things and the way that they work together, all of that would be impoverished and probably even impossible to fully grasp without you working it through in this way. It's in this marvelous story. that we really see what it means that our God is faithful, that our God is true, that our God loves his creation and he will see it thrive and flourish. what it means to be human beings, the role that we play in your purposes. All of these things are fleshed out and made clear to us through this glorious process that we call the history of redemption. And I pray that it would sit on our hearts in that way, that this would not just be mastering information, but that these these truths would be transformative, that they would be the way in which your spirit is teaching us Christ and conforming us to him, perfecting our sonship, even as you have taken us up in your own life and love in Jesus. So this is the way in which that purpose is perfected. that we will grow up in all things into Christ who is the head. Cause these things to be glorious, cause them to be precious, cause them to be the great treasure in a field that we have found that we will let everything go for, for the sake of holding fast and for the sake of being transformed by. We pray that you will cause these things to grow in the understanding and, again, the glory and preciousness that is true of them in each one of us, that you would make us true students, disciples of Jesus in this way. And Father, for those who can't be with us today, we pray for your hand with them as well, particularly we think of Dylan and Lacey, and as they begin this journey of parenting, pray that you will minister to them with your grace, give them patience, give them persevering hearts, give them joyful hearts. In the difficulty, in the tiredness, in the exhaustion, the frustration that can come in the early weeks and months with a new baby, I pray that you would give them a joy inexpressible and full of glory. You have blessed them greatly, and I pray that you will continue to knit them together as a family through this grace that they share, through this life that they share in Jesus our Lord, that they would even be faithful witnesses, faithful fragrance bearers of Christ with their son as he begins to grow. So Father, for each of us, the struggles, the challenges, the weaknesses, the frailties that mark each of us, think of Liz, we think of Shirley, all of those, Father, who are a part of our community, those with whom we have to do, and the challenges that we face, even our own lives as we grow older, we pray that you would cause our weakness to be met with your strength, to live into the truth that power is perfected in weakness. And so we can rejoice in our infirmities, our weaknesses, even our distresses and persecutions for Christ's sake, because it's when we're weak that we're strong. So bless us in these things. I pray for your deepest, most profound blessing upon each one. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.